


And Before I Know It, I’m In Orbit Around You

by Byrcca



Series: Little Trip to Heaven [3]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Episode: s07e02 Imperfection, F/M, but it’s really 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 10:50:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14187276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Byrcca/pseuds/Byrcca
Summary: Marriage means compromise. And adjusting to change. And someone else’s stuff.





	And Before I Know It, I’m In Orbit Around You

**Author's Note:**

> Set just a smidge before Imperfection. Maybe a day before. Maybe more. I haven’t been able to really figure out stardates though I’ve tried, and I don’t want them to have been married a month. I’m assuming that Voyager had to seek out the Wysanti, then spent a few days getting to know them before handing over the Borg kids. It doesn’t much matter anyway since the reference is fleeting and not central to the story.

***

There was hair everywhere: on his pillow, in the sink, on the back of the sofa. Stuck to the wall of the sonic shower. The captain had plucked one from his uniform sleeve—her eyesight was astounding—just this morning. Tom had plucked one from his peanut butter toast. 

He idly wondered if B’Elanna had a vitamin deficiency, and made a mental note to see if he could surreptitiously scan her. Maybe she was low on B12. Maybe she had scurvy. No. That was the one with the teeth falling out.

They’d been married for three weeks—twenty days, five hours, forty-seven minutes—and to say his life had been turned upside down was an understatement. Not that he minded, not that he didn’t welcome it. B’Elanna hadn’t come with much stuff, granted, but she was messy, sloppy in a way he hadn’t expected. Clothing left where she pitched it, “ _What? That’s a ‘not really dirty laundry’ pile!_ ”, content to leave the bed unmade, “ _We’ll just be climbing into it again._ ”, padds everywhere, “ _No! Don’t touch those. How will I know where anything is if you move it?_ ”. She left the toaster in the _middle_ of the table! When they’d moved into married quarters, she’d teased him that his stuff filled the place so it was a good thing she’d brought next to nothing. He was secretly glad she came ‘light’. 

He was pulling a long, reddish-brown hair from the inside of his tee shirt when she came through the door three hours late for dinner and obviously exhausted. “Hey,” he said, tugging her into a hug, and she sagged against him. “I thought you got lost.” He settled his chin on the top of her head.

“Well, one of these days I probably will go back to my old quarters after a double shift.”

“I hope you don’t scare whoever’s in there now.”

She stilled against his chest, and he heard a snort. “I think it might be Freddy.”

Tom pulled back and appraised her, trying to gauge if she were joking, then settled against her again. “That’s a little creepy,” he observed. “Think he knows how many nights I spent in that bed?” She laughed, rubbing her nose against his chest, and he spat her hair out of his mouth. He smoothed it down with his palm as he stepped back, putting a little space between them. 

“I’m dead on my feet,” she admitted, eyeing their bed longingly. 

“That’s what happens when you work fifteen hours straight and only have coffee for lunch,” he said mildly. 

“Wrong.” She pulled out of his arms and shrugged out of her jacket, then drew her turtleneck over her head and pitched it toward the corner near the ‘fresher. “Vorik forced me to eat a sandwich.”

“Vorik, huh?” 

“He has such an earnest little face sometimes,” she said, kicking off her boots and unfastening her slacks, then crossing the room to sit on the bed and shove them down her legs. She tossed them onto a chair. Tom picked them up and shoved them and her turtleneck into the ‘fresher. “I can wear them again, you know. They’re not covered in goo this time.”

“So Vorik spent his rations on a sandwich for the boss?” He posed the question mildly, but he was genuinely curious. He hadn’t quite forgiven him for his attentions to her three years ago—and his _intentions_ toward her—and in unguarded moments he fantasized about clocking him one, right in the nose. Not that B’Elanna hadn’t done that herself. She’d made her peace with him long ago; Tom was still trying.

“No,” she said. Off came her underwear, which she shoved in the ‘fresher herself, and Tom just stood there and enjoyed the view. “He got Neelix to make one: pleeka rind marmalade and—”

“Peanut butter,” Tom chorused with her.

“I think they secretly hate me,” she stated. 

He knew they doted on her. Certainly Neelix would deny her nothing. In fact, he suspected she had a whole harem of men who secretly looked after her: Neelix, Vorik, Chakotay, Joe Carey, himself. Secretly, because if she had any idea, any inkling that they were doing it, she would have been royally offended and shut it down immediately. 

She walked up to him and wound her arms around his neck. “Scrub my back?” she asked. 

He was tempted. But he knew exactly where this back-scrubbing business would end up. She’d skipped breakfast, and if she was running on coffee and one peanut butter sandwich, she needed food first. He skimmed his palms up her sides from her hips to her waist to her ribs. Then he kissed her on the tip of her nose and leaned over to grab her white robe from the end of the bed. It was the one she’d acquired from that playwright, Kelis, when she and Harry had been missing for two long, agonizing weeks. It was softer than it should have been, and she’d kept it, preferring it to her ‘fleet issued bathrobe. “ _Hey, I made my stage debut in this thing_.” Tom figured it was the hood that swayed her affections.

He pulled two long, dark hairs out of the hood, another from the sleeve, and wrapped it around her. “Dinner first,” he said, belting her in. 

“I can take care of myself, you know.” 

“Of course,” he agreed. 

“What did you make?” 

Tom had settled into domesticity like he’d been waiting for it all his life. He loved falling asleep with her every night, and waking up with her every morning. Loved eating breakfast with her, and meeting her for lunch on the scant days they managed it. And when they didn’t, loved knowing that they would share dinner together even if it was at 22:15. 

He didn’t even mind picking up after her, and he loved that he could peruse her underwear drawer any time he wanted. 

“Shepherd’s pie.”

“With the little onions and the beer gravy?” She looked bereft.

“I kept it warm for you.”

“Ohh, thank you! You are too good to me.”

She followed him to the dining table and he pulled out her chair, then took her plate from the warmer and set it before her with a little flourish. “Pearls for m’lady,” he said with a smile. She raised an eyebrow in question. “The little onions,” he explained. “They’re pearl onions.”

“Does that make you my swine?” she shot back with a grin. 

He _oinked_ cheerfully. “Always have been.”

She put a forkful of dinner in her mouth and _mmm’d_ theatrically. “I don’t deserve you.” 

“We’ll figure out a way for you to make it up to me later,” he said. He liked watching her eat. She ate with her whole body, whether digging in with gusto or nibbling by hand. Her facial expressions were theatre in their own right. But she paused and looked at him, pushing the potatoes around with her fork. 

“Tom…”

“Hmm?” He raised an eyebrow. 

“During the race, when you stopped the ‘ _Flyer_ , what made you decide to ask me to marry you all of a sudden?” She looked hesitant, almost like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to know the answer. “I mean, you didn’t think I was demanding that we either get married or break up, did you?”

He took her hand, running his fingers over the back, tracing the wedding ring on her finger. So, they were going to talk about that. He’d assumed it was on the list of _Incidents Which Will Never Be Discussed._ “It wasn’t really that sudden,” he said. 

She nodded. “Well, you did jump from ‘Harry and Irina look cute together’ to wedding bells pretty quickly. It must have been on your mind.” She took another bite, busied herself with her plate. “So, how long had you been thinking about it?”

He didn’t even have to struggle. “Since Alice.” He shrugged at her surprised expression. “I’ve felt married since Alice.” Now that was an incident they had discussed. He’d been mortified by his behaviour toward her, mind control or no, and terrified that she might have seen a bit more of the inner workings of his brain than she could handle. She’d assured him she hadn’t, though she had seen Alice in his mind’s eye and given him a little punch to the shoulder for imagining such a pretty other woman/ship. 

“Do you remember the drawing Naomi made for me? The ‘get well’ card.” She didn’t know, but he’d kept it, tucked away inside one of his his hard cover books. He’d used it as a bookmark while he was convalescing and left it there. 

She nodded, pushing away her empty plate. “Me, you, and my warp core. My two favourite things.” She smiled. “She used the same crayon for the core and your eyes.” 

“That drawing made me realize that we were a team. A unit. She probably didn’t remember a time when we weren’t together, and I didn’t want her to.”

“So why didn’t you ask me then?” Her voice was soft. 

He was still playing with her fingers. “Would you have said yes?” 

“I don’t know.”

He nodded. “I thought you were happy with the way things were.” With the distance between them. “I was afraid you’d think I was crowding you. I guess I was afraid you’d run away.”

She tilted her head at that, seemed to consider him. “It’s a small ship. I wouldn’t get far.” 

“Believe me,” Tom said, “when you’re in engineering and I’m on the bridge and we’re under fire from some hostile aliens, it feels like you’re a world away. The words, hull breach on deck twelve, scare the hell out of me.”

“Like the bridge isn’t a target? Don't you think I worry about you, too?”

He shrugged. “I know how you get when you’re busy down there. I hope you don’t worry about me.”

She stared at him with narrowed eyes. “Are we going to make this work?”

He felt a little wave of fear wash over him. Their relationship had always involved a lot of push-me/pull-you, both of them eager to step back and give the other space, _hide their heads, you mean_ , Tom thought, whenever they hit an emotional bump in the road. Tom had been just as guilty as B’Elanna at getting so involved in his interests that he seemed to ignore her. Did ignore her. But he recognized that behaviour for what it was: uncertainty, a defence mechanism. Not knowing what she wanted or expected from him, from _them_. And being too afraid of her rejection to ask. 

“I thought it was working. You don’t have regrets, do you?” He’d stiffened. He was almost afraid to suggest it.

She stood up from the table and wound her arms around his shoulders. “Only that it took us so long. I mean, if I’d’ve known I’d have a live-in chef and housekeeper I might have married you years ago.”

He untied the belt of her robe, suddenly very aware that she was naked underneath, and wrapped his arms around her waist. He snuggled her between her bare breasts. “I kind of enjoy the sex slave part more.” He kissed her chest, then stood, lifting her as he did so. She squealed and clutched at his shoulders, her gorgeous, thick hair falling around his face. This was another indulgence, another intimacy, he allowed himself since their wedding. He’d picked her up a few times while they were dating, when he was showing off, or when their ardour had been a bit more Klingon in nature than human. Times when the neighbors had likely been hiding their heads under their pillows. Picked her up to carry her to the bed, but never just to express his joy in having her with him. 

He spun her a little then set her down. She stared at him, then laughed softly. 

“What?”

“You. Just...you. Now.”

He raised an eyebrow. Had she caught on to this picking her up thing? Was she annoyed by it? Maybe she liked it. He hoped she liked it.

She tilted her head. “Do you know what you did today?”

“Umm...I inventoried analgesics for the doc. Then I went to the shuttlebay and topped up the emergency med kits in the shuttles that were missing anything, and I ran a diagnostic on the medical tricorders since I was there. Nicoletti sliced open her palm on a buckled housing panel on the ‘Flyer, but you probably already know that.”

She nodded. 

“So I dealt with that and filed a report with the doc. I worked on the conn rotation schedule for next week.” He wracked his brain. No attack by the Borg, no inter-dimensional spatial rifts, no mind control. Today had been fairly mundane, considering, and nothing was coming to mind. 

“The meeting with the Wysanti this morning,” she hinted. 

They’d spent the better part of the last week tracking down the home planet of the Wysanti, Asan and Rebi’s species. They’d wanted to offer them the same choice they’d given Icheb though, hopefully, their reunion would have a better outcome. The boys had decided they wanted to leave _Voyager_ and settle with their own people, to search for their family. And because any contact with a friendly alien planet was seen as an opportunity to trade, Captain Janeway had brought aboard representatives of the Wysanti for a meeting in the briefing room. The senior staff had been there, including Tom and B’Elanna. 

He wrinkled his brow, trying to remember what he could have said… 

“I was a little late and you introduced me.”

“Yesss…?” 

“Do you remember what you said?” She linked her hands behind his neck and pressed her nude body a little closer to him. He was supposed to think while she was doing this? 

“Umm. First Minister, this is our chief engineer?”

“Not quite.” She smiled. “Your exact words were, First Minister, this is my wife, B’Elanna, _Voyager’s_ chief engineer.”

He smiled back. “Okay.”

Another head tilt. “You don’t see it, do you?” He shook his head. “You did the same thing at the reception after the race, after we were married.” 

There had been a post-race reception, of course, hosted by _Voyager_ after the trans-stellar rally. And because they’d competed, Janeway had asked them to show their freshly scrubbed faces. _Just for half an hour, then you can get on with your honeymoon._ So B’Elanna had showered, changed, packed a bag, dealt with engineering, then arrived at the mess hall, a little late. Tom had been watching for her, and had drawn her to his side and introduced her to a group of pilots as “ _my wife, B’Elanna”._ She’d had to add on the chief engineer and co-pilot part. 

“It’s just funny, that’s all. A month ago, I was _Voyager’s_ chief engineer. Now I’m Mrs. Paris.” 

Tom stared at her quizzically. “You don’t look like my mom,” he said.

She laughed. “I assume not.”

He squeezed her. Her open robe was starting to slip off her shoulders, and she was pressed close enough to him that her laughter was doing odd things to his equilibrium. All that jiggling against his chest. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

“I like it,” she murmured. “I like how you claim me.” 

Her eyes had darkened and her voice had turned husky. He felt his body respond and wondered just how sturdy their glass-topped dining table was. 

“I think it might be time for that shower now,” he said, loving the lascivious gleam in her eyes. 

“I think you have the best ideas,” she replied. 

So he bent down and slid his arm under her knees, and scooped her up, cradling her to his chest. Truth to tell, she wasn’t as light as she appeared; she was all muscle. Luckily, the bathroom wasn’t that far. She rested her head on his shoulder and slid her fingers down and across his chest, brushing away a stray dark hair. He grinned. 

He crossed the room and deposited her just inside the sonic shower, then pulled off his tee shirt and stepped out of his sweatpants. He tossed them on the floor. 

“If you think that’s me _claiming you_ B’Elanna, try again. You need to think bigger.” He tossed her robe to the floor, backed her into the shower and hit the controls, and as the warm air started to swirl around their bodies he ran his lips from her cheekbone down to her jaw and down her throat. Her knees buckled. 

“You’re my mate, you always have been.” His teeth grazed her skin as his mouth reversed course and moved back up her throat to her lips. She kissed him, hard, biting his lower lip, growling her pleasure. And then they claimed each other. 

***


End file.
